Sayyaf leader, 2 others killed in Tawi-Tawi clash

SANGA-SANGA, Tawi-Tawi — Government troops killed a local commander of the Abu Sayyaf who allegedly orchestrated a raid on a tugboat earlier this year and took three crewmembers hostage, the military said yesterday. Two of his supporters were also killed.

Elements of the Naval Task Force 62 clashed early Friday with about 30 guerrillas of the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf in a remote village outside the town of Languyan in Tawi-Tawi, Capt. Feliciano Angue, the special warfare group’s commander, said.

Ayub Bakil, a local Abu Sayyaf leader, was killed, along with his brother, Jaber, and his nephew, Basil.

Superintendent William Usman, Tawi-Tawi police director, positively identified the slain men.

Angue said Bakil and his men may have been looking for new hideouts in the village of Maraming when soldiers, who were informed by civilians of their presence, surprised the guerrillas.

The other guerrillas escaped following the hour-long gunfight. Two civilian informers were wounded.

Bakil’s men allegedly took two Malaysians and one Indonesian hostage after raiding the tugboat M/L Ocean 2 on April 11 in waters close to Tawi-Tawi.

The captives - Indonesian skipper Walter Sampel, 53, and Malaysian crewmembers Toh Chiu Tiong, 48, and Wong Siu Ung, 52 — were not with Bakils’ band during the clash, Angue said.

Angue said the Navy is closely coordinating with Malaysian forces in Sabah to rescue the hostages and prevent the gunmen’s escape.

Angue believes that the captives are being held in one of the islands near the island-town of Languyan.

Usman confirmed that the Abu Sayyaf band has demanded P10 million in exchange for the captives’ release.

"We are not privy to any negotiations. If there are any negotiations, we will stick to the government’s no-ransom policy. We will go after the kidnappers at all cost," he said.

Tawi-Tawi governor-elect Sadikul Sahali said the kidnappers initially demanded P45 million but later lowered it to P10 million.

The three captives, all working for the tugboat M/L Ocean 2, were seized last April 11 off Lingkian Island near the Malaysian border.

Last month, Bakil’s group freed three Indonesians and a Filipino whom they kidnapped in October from a resort in the nearby eastern Malaysian state of Sabah after a private Malaysian negotiator reportedly paid an undetermined amount of ransom.

Angue said some of the funds were used to buy more arms for the Abu Sayyaf, which is on the United States’ list of foreign terrorist organizations.

The group, notorious for beheading many of its captives, was largely decimated during a six-month US-led counterterrorism exercise in the southern Philippines in 2002. — With Jaime Laude